Time to woo Indian women: Tag Heuer

Think Formula 1, think Tag. Tag Heuer, whose forte is keeping time for men on the fast track, is set to sport a new collection to woo Indian women.

“We are embarking on double digit encouraging growth from Indian market where our current focus is to gain attention of female shoppers,” said Frank Dardenne, general manager and official spokesperson for LVMH Watch and Jewellery (India). “For this, we target to escalate the sales for women’s watches to 35% this year from the current 25%.”

Tag, a unit of French luxury group LVMH, will bring in more design-centric watches, as women are more design-savvy and men more interested in technical aspects, Dardenne said.

Interestingly, pricing would not be a major concern. The costs would range between Rs 2.3 lakh to 15 lakh. “Indians are not bothered about super expensive spends,” he said. “We sold our limited edition watch costing R50 lakh in few days. We could probably have sold 10 units more, but the stock was unavailable.” Another aspect to wooing is the sales pitch. “We plan to bring bespoke, on-demand services. They would be able to engrave initials or could find various dial colours available,” said Dardenne.

Tag Heuer may also look for multi-brand retail outlets this year. “Two years ago our watches were available at just 6-7 outlets in India, but today we are present in 26 cities with 87 multi-brand retail partners. Earlier our focus was hotels and malls in metros… our next targets are Pune, Ahemadabad, Chandigarh and Cochin,” Dardenne said.

According to retail consultancy Technopak, the size of the Indian timewear industry is estimated at Rs 4,200 crore with an annual growth rate of 8-10%. Globally, Tag Heuer is aiming for sales of around 1 billion Swiss francs (R5,600 crore) this year whereas within India.